Crutchfield: Sony Alpha A-mount Cameras

I've been a camera nut since I was a kid. I got really into it around age 12, when I got hold of a Pentax K1000 35mm camera. My father is a photo nut also, and we had access to a darkroom. Ever since then I have delighted in trying out new cameras, lenses, and photo techniques. Working here at Crutchfield, I get to handle all the new and cool camera gear I can get my hands on.

I'm also into audio, from car audio to home audio to headphones. I'm a music lover, and an eye-opening moment for me was discovering just how much more there is to musical recordings when you listen using high-quality gear. It's an experience I try to pass along to others as often as possible. I truly believe that having good quality gear in your car or home can really enrich your life.

I started getting into the video side of things early on in my Crutchfield career while I was a copywriter for car audio products. In those days our video program was just getting started, and many of us pitched in when our writing and editing duties allowed. Today, we have a dedicated team that makes hundreds of videos a year, including spotlights on products and product lines, how-to videos, videos that shine a light on our company, end everything in between. I am proud to be a part of that team and of the work we do.

My job is a lot of fun because I get to play around with all the cool stuff you see on our website while I'm making videos. Getting hands-on with the gear helps me see what I should show you about a product, and I look at our videos as a way of having a conversation with you when you are considering a purchase. If I do my job well, you should come away from a Crutchfield video understanding why you do — or don't — want that product. In the end, it's gotta be something you enjoy.

Sony's Alpha family of digital SLR cameras take a different approach than traditional DSLRs. First, instead of a traditional flipping mirror, Sony employs a translucent pellicle mirror that splits the incoming light, allowing for faster shooting. Second, Sony's sensor-shift stabilization lets all attached lenses fight dreaded camera shake. Sony gives you a mature line of A-mount lenses to choose from, including some from noted manufacturer Carl Zeiss. Get a rundown on the entire line from the Sony booth at CES 2013.

Video Transcript

Zak: I'm at the Sony booth at CES 2013 and Eldean, tell me about the DSLR systems.

Eldean: Alright, so we have a full DSLR system — everything from the, you know, the entry-level cameras, the A57, going all the way up to our big high-end, pro-quality, full-frame A99. Some exciting models in between, the A77, APS-C size, 24 megapixels that shoots up to 24 frames a second.

But I think what separates us most from other DSLR manufacturers is that we do things differently. We take Sony's total experience and we say, "Well, how can we improve on a fifty-year-old, you know, design and make it better"? And one of the things that we do is we use translucent mirror technology. So instead of having a moving mirror that goes up and down in the camera, you know, it's a mechanical piece that flops up and down.

You have to use an optical view finder, so if I'm gonna shoot video, it lifts up and I can't use may view finder. And it also slows the camera down. So by taking that out and making a phase detection system that works with a translucent mirror camera, we can have cameras that can shoot extremely fast, up to twelve frames a second. They can shoot HD video with continuous autofocus. They can also be a lot smaller and lighter, better on battery power, and deliver a better resultant image at the end of the day. So that's one of the things that we've, you know, really streamlined in terms of our DSLR lineup.

The other thing that we do is we have sensor-shift image stabilization. So instead of having two or three lenses in our lineup, one stabilized, one unstabilized.you'll find a lot of the other manufacturers, they'll say "Oh we have, you know, we have sixty or we have seventy lenses in our lineup." But they've got two of everything, right. They've got two of each one that actually gets stabilized. We don't need to do that in our lineup. We can actually deliver a higher quality lens, but it's stabilized.

And also every single lens that you buy is stabilized, including fisheye, wide-angle, teleconverter lenses, all stabilized through the image, through the sensor-shift system, the steady shift sensor-shift system. So those are a couple of technologies that we deliver in our cameras that make them perform a little differently, but a little better than the traditional SLR.

One of the other things that we really pride ourselves in is our full lineup of Carl Zeiss lenses. And I believe we're the only company that Carl Zeiss lenses will autofocus on, and the acclaimed G-Series lenses coming from the old Minolta factories, but now run by Sony. We still have that very, very high quality lens that we still produce and recently announced the 500 f/4. So if you haven't had a chance to shoot on that that's a really good lens, yeah.